I am a . . . Pacific Northwest Polytheist.

This is my second post in the “I Am Series,” in which I intend to discuss the often contradictory terms I’ve used to describe myself on my About Me page.

So what is a Pacific Northwest Polytheist? I first encountered this term, as well as a related idea – Local Focus Polytheism – on two of my favorite blogs: The House of Vines and A Forest Door. In fact, I believe the term was coined by Sannion and Dver . . . (though I should probably check with them to confirm). I have included some links to their thoughts on the subject below. The basic idea is that, as polytheists who believe in many gods and other divine beings, we should pay attention to the landscape around us and honor the local spirits and powers that inhabit the sacred places in which we live. This concept appears in most pagan/polytheist/indigenous cultures, including ancient Greece. Even a cursory reading of the writer Pausanias will provide countless examples of the many local nymphs, rivers, mountains, and heroes/heroines honored by the ancients, and these divine beings varied widely from one locality to the next.

Which is one reason I have always tried to honor the local spirits of the land in every place I’ve lived. When we lived in Paris, for example, Sequona (the goddess of the River Seine) was especially important to us. But the Pacific Northwest has been a constant and significant part of my identity. I was born in Portland, Oregon and I mostly grew up in Spokane, Washington. My mother is an incredibly gifted artist, and she supported us by selling her work at arts & crafts fairs throughout the Northwest, so much of my childhood was spent traveling all over the region. We went camping or on trips to the coast every summer, and my grandfather took me fishing in countless lakes. And on my 18th birthday I moved to Seattle, where I came of age by attending the Great Books program at Seattle University. In my senior year, on the second day of the current millennium, I met my beloved husband Wildstar, who was born and raised in Washington himself. We moved to Paris, France (where we lived off and on for about five years), and then to Los Angeles, where we spent six years focused on our careers. But I always longed for home. I longed for evergreens and rain and the Cascades and the Salish Sea.

There was one sweltering L.A. day in August . . . I was wearing a suit and tie and waiting for a bus in the San Fernando Valley. The bus was 45 minutes late. The asphalt was steaming, the smog was suffocating, and there wasn’t an inch of shade. I was reading a lovely little book called The Pacific Northwest Reader, in which my best friend Pandora had recently published an essay. Pandora wrote the following lines (in reference to our freshman year outdoor orientation retreat): “We went on nature walks and had meditation time, and with each new foray I found something different. Leaves the size of my face, curtains of moss the most vibrant green you could dream of, spiderwebs laden with dew that made them visible for yards in every direction. Everything was so dense and lush—especially compared to the harsh, bright-light desert I had called home a week before—that my brain went a little haywire. Part of me wanted to walk right into the forest, lie down on a mossy rock, and watch the animals, insects, and sky until I, too, was covered with green. Another part of me, the atavistic self-preserving part, kept to the well-worn paths for fear of being swallowed whole by the wildness of it all.” Reading those beautiful words, my memories and love of the Northwest came flooding back upon me. And the contrast to my own life at that moment was staggering, overwhelming. It was time for a change. Six months later we were living here in our Arcadian cabin nestled in the woods on top of a mountain, in an idyllic pastoral setting we affectionately call Oread Island. And Pandora’s words were the catalyst that brought us home.

There’s much more I could say, but first I want to direct your attention to some fantastic posts on the subject of Pacific Northwest Polytheism/Local Focus Polytheism. In fact, the following three blogs were my primary inspiration for creating the blog you are reading today, and I would like to take this moment to personally thank Dver at A Forest Door, Sannion at The House of Vines, and P. Sufenas Virius Lupus at Aedicula Antinoi for the amazing and inspiring work they do. Go read their blogs and buy all their books! Each of these talented individuals has a completely unique spiritual perspective and style, and their writings are filled with beauty and wisdom. In my humble opinion, their books should be required reading for anyone who calls themselves a pagan and/or a polytheist.

So what does Pacific Northwest Polytheism mean to me? I had planned to write a short essay on the subject, but after a long hike in the woods yesterday, I decided I would leave you with three pagan reveries instead. The following three poems/passages/reveries were written at various points last year, our first year back in the Pacific Northwest after the six hectic, career-focused years we spent in Los Angeles. These reveries are an attempt to convey in words my deep love for this region and my spiritual connection to this beautiful land.

Three Pacific Northwest Pagan Reveries

Looking at Canada from Oread Isle

Scattered rocks and shells across the sand.
Crashing waves, a cosmic rhythm.
Crystal sky adorned with a vortex-wisp of gossamer clouds.
Bright sun burning, yet I recline in shadow upon a plastic chair.
The sound of sea-spray, sparkles of sunlight flashing from the wave-crests.
Enchantment.
Beauty overflowing, almost too painful to gaze upon directly.
A light wind refreshes.
A speedboat and two kayaks glide past.
A lone sailboat in the distance.
There is a border here . . . a border between nations.
But the cosmic rhythm of crashing waves,
the refreshing light wind,
the burning sun,
the crystal sky and vortex-wisp of gossamer clouds,
make all such borders meaningless.
Two crows glide past.
A lone plane soars in the distance.
Crashing waves,
the sound of sea-spray,
sunlight flashing from the wave-crests.
Enchantment.

6/26/11

A Forest Quest – The Mountain Trail

Hiking deep into the woods, deep into the embrace of Grandmother Earth and up to the top of the mountain. The first part is the hardest. We sweat, we toil, we verge on despair, yet we trudge on, onward and upward. Earlier, Brother Hawk guided us here, and yesterday a wedded pair of bald eagles circled the quiet lake while we toasted to our anniversary. Last night, Jupiter was brighter than ever before, the Seven Sisters were smiling, and we were dazzled by three shooting stars. But now, it is hot. We sweat and we toil as we trudge onward and upward, deeper into the woods, higher up the mountain.

We stop at a sacred grove. Three giant tree stumps, elegantly crowned with plumes of growing fern. They resemble three distinguished matrons, wearing their newest fashionable hats to court. Or three stately high priestesses with elaborate headgear, presiding over a secret woodland rite. After pouring a libation to the sacred grove, the scale upward becomes slightly less difficult and the songbirds serenade us on our journey. Moss-covered arboreal denizens begin to take shape, dazzling us with an array of emerald forms: snakes and ships and caves, ogres and trolls and imps, vibrant old jesters, solemn queens, orgies of satyrs, battalions of jousting centaurs, wild gangs of grimacing gorgons, a row of sleek beardless youths poised for a race, pairs and groups of lovers locked in the throes of passion, mothers giving birth, a nurse trunk with a full-grown adult tree sprouting forth, two trees entwined, two trees spooning, two trees with clasping hands or clasped embrace, a titanic glove holding a spear, a surrealist series of crutches propping up a diagonal temple frame, trees with deep roots whose trunks are precariously, improbably positioned over pathways, families and schools and entire tribes of trees of every shape. Then we notice mushrooms clustered like mussels or stacked like bookshelves or layered in pockets. Fungus growths like beehives, beaded necklaces, dried seed-pods. A distant goldfinch catches my eye and I look up with my binoculars, only to see a wondrous treasure: a tree oozing trickles of golden sap – not mere amber – but lustrous, shimmering, metallic and glittering like gold. I bow in reverence and silently we move on.

The ground levels as we ascend to the next stage of the trail, and the chorus of songbirds increases, punctuated only by the cackling laughter of the occasional woodpecker or the nearby rustling of a rabbit darting about the underbrush. At last, we reach the look-out point and think we’re done. The view is exquisite – islands upon islands upon islands, islands scattered like tea leaves, spaced like bits of sediment in the bottom of a wine-glass. Distant, yet vaguely numberless, so many shapes and sizes and types, from gentrified upscale communities with multiple ferries, to lush unpopulated nature preserves with multiple faeries, to tiny specks of rock with sunbathing seals. The cliffside is sheer, the sky is baby-blue with patches of fluffy clouds, the sea a green-blue, pale-blue hazel-grey.

We recline on a rock and read the posted map. We think the quest is finished, but we’ve only reached the half-way point! Where will the trail lead us? To another look-out point? To the mountain’s peak? Or will it just suddenly stop in the middle of the wilderness? We decide to press onward. A grey rabbit scampers down the trail in front of us, like he was leading the way, only to be followed by a low-flying peregrine falcon, who dives down the path in hot pursuit. Moments later we hear the ominous, baritone, almost helicopter-like sound of flapping wings as an enormous raven plunges down the same trail. Rabbit and falcon and raven could not be wrong. This must be the way.

Much later, we encounter a jagged rock formation that looks like the sculpted face of a stern and serious elderly man with a wild beard overgrown with moss. It’s the face of the Old Man of the Mountain! We pour a libation of water and utter a prayer of praise and respect to the wise and ancient king, the grizzled god of the mountain himself, the ancient son of Grandmother Earth, the hermit hidden in the woods, the solid force beneath our feet, the primeval power behind the entire experience.

Throughout the journey, there were moments of sheer aesthetic arrest from the sublime, transcendent beauty that permeated the entire landscape. At one point we were both overcome with euphoria, a light-headed sensation accompanied by a burst of adrenaline and endorphins, possibly brought on by the combination of high altitude, intense physical exertion, and remarkably pure air. Or perhaps it was just the overwhelming beauty and truth and wisdom and power and freedom and goodness of this sacred place.

It was a magickal three hours immersed in enchantment, and yet it also cemented the realization that my previous life in the so-called “real world” of a prosperous career in the big city was only a fragile illusion. The higher reality is right here in these woods, on top of this island mountain with the trees and moss and mushrooms and rabbits and falcons and ravens. Here with our fellow children and grandchildren of Grandmother Earth.

8/24/11 [Wildstar’s birthday]

The Perfect Gift

Vision of purple in my mind’s eye.
Vision of green, and the blue-grey sea.
A striped seashell from Father Poseidon,
a cackle of distant gulls,
the silver clink of beach stones underfoot,
steady pulse of wave-rhythm,
saltwater finger-tips and kelp-scent.
Islands cloaked in cloud-clusters,
the snaky tide scatters quivering jellyfish
and crab remnants across the rocky shore.
On a driftwood log beside my Beloved,
I pour a libation to the Lord of Waves,
while he discovers a jettisoned chopstick,
an ornately carved memento,
an exotic messenger from another land
who surely traveled far to greet us.
A light breeze whispers past,
my Beloved kisses my forehead
and I am perfectly happy,
completely in love,
and entirely at peace.
At peace with life,
at peace with the world,
at peace with the gods of this world,
at peace with the love that permeates this world,
the love that permeates all of existence . . .
I have found the Good.

12 Comments

We are rather similar in many respects, my friend: my mother came from Spokane, and we visited there a lot when I was younger. I lived there for two years (August ’98 to May ’00) when I was doing my M.A. at Gonzaga–it was not an ideal time in many respects for a variety of reasons, and though the hot summers disagreed with me, nonetheless the place itself was quite pleasant, and I’d be happy to go back there at any time for a visit. The islands here are where I’m from, though, and where I’ll always feel most at home–if I can see Puget Sound, the mountains, and the trees, I’m very happy indeed. 🙂

Total aside: Also, when I hear “Wildstar,” I always think of Star Blazers, which was one of my most favorite shows as a kid. 😉

I didn’t realize you’d also attended a Jesuit university. I believe Gonzaga and Seattle U. are sister schools. If the Pope only knew how many pagans came out of those Jesuit schools, he would probably excommunicate the entire order again . . .

And it’s funny that you mention Star Blazers, because that is exactly where my husband took his moniker. As a kid, he had spiky dark hair and the kids called him Derek Wildstar after the character on the show (who definitely had a subtextual homoerotic bromance going on with Mark Venture, by the way). Anyway, the nickname stuck, so Ryan used it at his last name when he started his first band.

Indeed–and, I think the president of GU while I was there was a former SU guy…I was the only non-Christian in my religious studies department when I graduated (and one of the few non-Catholics…though not the only queer, as there was a glut of lesbian lay minister aspirants!), but soon after, someone I was friends with became a pagan as well because she realized being Catholic was a dead-end spiritual career for her.

So few people where I lived knew about Star Blazers…I always thought Derek Wildstar was quite hot, and that particular aesthetic has always appealed to me. As for Wildstar and Venture…hmm, I don’t know. 😉 But, you and your husband are both named “Ryan,” then? That must be confusing…though, you’re not the first gay couple I’ve met who have had the same names. My dad has some neighbors named Stephen and Steve, which is sort of funny…

Yes, my husband I are known as Ryan and Ryan. It’s really not as confusing as everyone else thinks it is. :Most of our friends and family have different nicknames or other epithets to distinguish us (I am occasionally “Ryan the Greek”), though they’re all different depending upon the friend, so that can be amusing. But on the plus side it’s almost impossible to meet us and forget our names!

We’d love to head down to Anacortes for a visit, but I just don’t think we’ll have time before we leave. I’m teaching a poetry workshop next weekend, and the weekend after we’ll be packing and such . . . we still have a quite a bit to do. I will be blogging and still in contact via email while we’re gone, and when we return I *definitely* want to head down for the day. I look forward to meeting you and think we will have much to discuss!

Derek

Hello, person I don’t know. I’m taking your new presence as a sign I should share a Kickstarter project with you. I thought about sharing it with Sannion, but his local focus isn’t really that close to the project. (And I had just suggested something to Dver, so I didn’t want to be That Guy.) But now here you are.

The Strong People will be a documentary filmed this summer about the removal of the Ehlwa and Glines Canyon dams. The focus of the documentary with be the relationship between the Ehlwa Klallam tribe and the river.

Sounds very interesting! Thanks for sharing! I know quite a few people up here in Whatcom county who might be interested in this, so I will let them know. This also sounds like a subject that would make for a fascinating presentation/talk at our local library if you are interested. . . or at least a showing of the documentary when it comes out next year. Let me talk to some people first and I will get back to you!

Derek

I’m here only as a messenger, connecting two peripheral groups. I know about the project because I work with the mother of one of the kids on the editing crew. I know about you from Sannion’s recent share of your LocalFocus polytheism. I’m not affiliated with the project as anything other than a backer so I can’t help you set up presentations.